“Should we have him circumcised, doctor?”
Countless doctors are asked this question each year. Often the answer is determined by the doctor’s state of anatomical completeness rather than by scientific fact.
Circumcision is a widespread religious practice which somehow has, in some communities, become a social habit.
Most American Anglo-Saxons are circumcised, and this is also the custom in Australia and to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom.
It is uncommon in Europe and therefore, uncommon in the sons of European migrants in this country.
Is it ever really necessary? Most doctors now accept that it is rarely required medically, but many continue to carry out this operation on the newborn for a variety of reasons, which include the parents’ wish to make him the same as his father, his brothers or the other children at school; it’s easier to do then rather than later in life, or because the doctor genuinely believes it to be a necessary procedure.
The prepuce or foreskin covers the glans or bulb on the end of the penis. In the new-born this cannot be retracted.
By the age of one, it can be retracted in 50 per cent of boys, in 80 per cent at two years, and 90 per cent at three. Mothers should therefore resist the temptation to retract the foreskin to clean beneath it. This is unnecessary until the prepuce has separated from the glans.
It is not possible to examine a young infant and suggest that circumcision is indicated because the foreskin can’t be pulled back.
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